Some Gays Just Don’t Get It Or Don’t Want To Get It

When I was down at the Norwalk Pride on Saturday a number of people asked me if I saw Alyssa Edwards, Laganja Estranja, and Shangela from RuPaul's Drag Race and I just said no. The thing many trans people are not fans of the RuPaul's Drag Race show because of the use of words that are objectionable to many in the trans community.

Earlier in the month the Guardian had an article about RuPaul,

RuPaul: 'Drag is dangerous. We are making fun of everything'Riding high with his reality show Drag Race, the star tells us why he will never be mainstream, the importance of finding your tribe, and the secret to being a ‘badass bitch’

I don’t mind drag; it is just not my cup of tea. What I do mind is the words that RuPaul uses, there are many people who do drag that understand that they do not need to use words that hurt the trans community. But RuPaul refuses to change his ways.

Last year, RuPaul found himself under fire from an even less likely enemy. A number of people from the transgender community objected to the show’s use of the phrase, ‘You’ve got she-mail’ following a challenge called Female or She-male? There were complaints to its US network, Logo, which dropped the line for the new season. “I would not have changed it, but that’s their choice,” he says now. “Our intention was always coming from a place of love. On paper, you cannot read intention, so it was actually hurtful. First of all, drag is dangerous. We are making fun of everything. But when someone doesn’t get the joke or feels offended by it, it’s a lose-lose situation, because you can’t explain a joke. It isn’t funny if you explain it.”

Is anything off-limits when it comes to comedy? “Not with me. It has saved my life. Some of the trauma from my childhood and my sisters and some of the stuff going on in my family, we just fuckin’ laughed.” This is what he learned from his punk-rock “tribe” in Atlanta – to laugh in the face of “how horrible the situation was on Earth”. He grows serious. “If you cannot laugh at it, you gotta buck up and get strong. Cos I think everything is a fucking laugh riot.” And right there, you get a glimpse of the 14-year-old who decided not to check out, but to own what it means to be the most badass bitch of all.

Yes there are limits to the words you can use, you don’t use the “N” word, you don’t use ethnic or racial slurs or you don’t use the “F” word for gays and you don’t use words the trans community finds objectionable. Those words are the words we hear called out on the street to degrade us or are used in the pornography business.

Words hurt.